Monday, May 24, 2004

Foreign Terrorists, like this 2 year-old girl

Okay, I'm sure U.S. forces aren't cruel enough to randomly bomb isolated tents and homes in the middle of the desert (although I would say that with much greater assurance *before* the Abu Ghraib photos came to light) but it really irks me to see them trying to spin such an obvious screw up in a different direction.

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.

Bad people have celebrations, too? Bad people like this 2 year old girl who now needs a tube to drain her liver?

"We have not denied anything about this incident. We still don't believe there was a wedding going on, or a wedding party going on, when we hit in the early morning hours. Could there have been some sort of celebration going on earlier? Certainly," the official said.

Not even the people whose parents, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and children had their bodies ripped apart by bombs paid for by the US taxpayer are denying the celebrations were over when hell fell on them from above. That's just a stupid, mean thing to say.

Even if this were *also* a terrorist hideout this would be terrible. If there's even a chance that the building you're considering dropping your bombs on is filled with innocent men, women, and children, it would seem to me that securing the area in a more precise manner than exploding it would be in order.

But then again, maybe there's something I just don't understand about war.